Shout Outs and Sharing

I’ve been thinking about the share buttons on our blogs. When I first started blogging I wasn’t aware of the importance of these buttons—other than the fact that most of us have them at the bottom of our posts, I felt like they are there merely  for someone to click if they wanted to ‘like’ what they had read.

In my earlier blogging days, if I enjoyed a post I always felt that I was letting the writer know so by hitting ‘like’. I didn’t realize the importance of the other ‘share’ buttons until I became a published author. Now, I’m not saying we have to be published authors in order to have our writing appreciated and shared, but this was when I learned to understand the concept of social sharing and the importance of using these buttons.

When writers spend the time writing articles and posting helpful information that can benefit others, isn’t that worth sharing? It’s  especially nice for the newcomers to blogging who are always eager to learn new things about their trade. On the same token, those buttons are very precious to help promote the writer’s website. After all, if we didn’t share things, many writers miss out on the chance of having their writing exposed to more readers and followers, not to mention, potential sales for their books.

These buttons offer a chance for someone else to discover the writer’s page, and by sharing on all the various sites, it creates a chain reaction of other readers to enjoy the posts and continue to have these posts ‘shared’ again from the new pages and blogs the original shares are posted in. It’s essentially cyber advertising, FREE advertising.

When I realized how important all the sharing was, I made it a part of my blogging to hit ‘like’ if I enjoyed a post and click share on all the other social media buttons that I have accounts with if I felt a post was newsworthy and especially if I read about a promotion a fellow author was offering at the time to help spread the word for them. It doesn’t cost me anything to do those things and gives my followers who read my tweets, google page, linkedin or facebook, a chance to read something they may not have discovered or a book they may be interested in.

I think there may be a lot of bloggers who may be prolific writers but not so well-versed in the techniques of social media; I know I sure was at the beginning of my writing journey. I didn’t realize that when we click on share with twitter etc., that the post I had just read gets posted to my own accounts for others to view, enjoy and pass along. And so I wanted to share what I have learned along this path and perhaps make others aware of the importance of using the social share buttons at the end of our posts.

Now, don’t forget to share! 🙂